Gamertell

For those of you who don’t know who Ken Levine is, he is the founder and creative director of 2K Boston, and the keynote speaker for the 2008 Penny Arcade Expo. His impressive resume consists of System Shock 2, the Freedom Force series, Tribes: Vengeance and, of course, Bioshock. 

I was not certain what to expect when Ken Levine took the stage, but the last thing I was expecting was his autobiography. Not only that, he talked about his adolescence and how he “wanted to have sex with the Scarlet Witch”. (This is not an actual quote, as I am censoring how he actually phrased it.)

Levine went on to explain how his love for comic books, video games, and other science fiction made him feel like a nerd to the other kids. However, he eventually found his “Tribe” in a group who played Dungeons and Dragons. Unfortunately, as his friends grew up, they became more interested in women than dice, and his group broke apart…

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Comic-Con 2008 started off (July 24, 2008) with a bang as Will Wright took to the podium to deliver his keynote. Wright is the mastermind behind The Sims games and the soon to be released Spore.

During his speech, Wright talked a lot about what personally interests him. Given the nature of Spore there’s no surprise he’s into such things as aliens and the novel/film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Apparently he felt right at home with his fellow otaku offering detailed insights on why videogames should be considered art. Wright sees newer kinds of media to be the scorn of older media forms. They all take on a process that eventually ends up as being a way for one to artistically express oneself. In a way, that is what he was gunning for with Spore.

Click through for the highlights from Will Wright’s keynote speech…

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Although of the official keynotes and press conferences for E3 2008, that doesn’t mean you still can’t enjoy the informational goodness they provided.

Here’s a quick-link list of our coverage of all the the press conferences and two keynote addresses from E3 2008. Enjoy!

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

• Nintendo press conference: [Live Blog] [Recap]
• Sony press conference: [Live Blog] [Recap]
• Ubisoft press conference: [Recap]
• Capcom press conference: [Recap]

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

• E3 Keynote by Gov. Perry: [Recap]
• Take-Two press conference: [Recap]
• “State of the Industry” keynote by ESA CEO Mike Gallagher: [Recap]
• Konami press conference: [Recap]

The second official day of E3 2008 was highlighted with a keynote speech by the Entertainment Software Associations (ESA) CEO, Mike Gallagher (1:00 p.m. PT, July 16, 2008).

A stand-at-a-podium affair, Gallagher was obviously gung-ho about the industry he represents although the low attendance indicated that not many people were not very gung-ho to listen to him speak (although, according to Gamepot, a few more were in attendance for Gallagher’s speech than Gov. Rick Perry’s) . His keynote was more a call to the industry to unite and work together than industry stats, though there were a few of those, too.

Click through for a recap of his keynote…

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Yeah, it’s a bit of a weird choice for a videogame keynote address, but Texas Gov. Rick Perry took the stage and talked today (9:15 a.m. PT, July 16, 2008) at E3 2008.

In his defense, Perry was pretty gushing about the videogame industry in a recent interview with the San Antonio Express-News, giving kind words to the money making power of the industry and expanding demographics of games.

According to the GamePolitics Live Blog (via Twitter so don’t blame me for the clicking), there were approximately 50 people who attended Perry’s keynote. That’s a pretty small crowd for a politician’s speech but likely because he’s not a name in the game industry and there are so many games to play at the Expo.

Even so, here’s bullet point style recap of Perry’s rather upbeat keynote…

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During the Game Developers Conference, Microsoft announced a new video game sharing feature for Xbox Live that will allow gamers to play and rate community developed games. They can also share theses games with any of their Xbox Live friends.

Microsoft believes that the new “open distribution” service will be a boon for community game development, allowing any level developers to almost instantly reach 10 million Xbox Live users. With the announcement of this new service, seven games created using XNA Game Studio 2.0 have already been announced…

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Nokia’s new N-Gage service has been marred by several delays and, in December 2007, the company formally pushed the launch of the service to the first half of 2008. Now with a pre-launch version, N-Gage First Access, being made available to N81 users through the official N-Gage website, the full version can’t be far off. And just before the launch of the service, the ongoing Game Developers Conference proved to be a great platform for the cellphone maker to shed more light on N-Gage’s new avatar as a standard gaming service for Nokia cellphone which will allow users to download and…

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Nintendo’s biggest announcements at GDC 2008 have included dates for the company’s next big things, including WiiWare. The Big N named May 12, 2008 as the roll out date for WiiWare, a downloadable content service for the Wii that will allow gamers to purchase fresh new content (and gives indie developers a chance to tap into the huge Wii market). Exactly a week later (May 19, 2008) Wii Fit and it’s infamous peripheral, the Wii Balance Board, will launch. And the company made mention of hotly anticipated Wii title Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which is still on target for a March 9, 2008 release.

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According to the PlayStation Blog, “father of the PlayStation” Ken Kutaragi has just been honored with the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences’ (AIAS) 2008 lifetime achievement award. The ceremony occurred earlier this week at the D.I.C.E. summit in Las Vegas.

Kutaragi is famous for his engineering skill, and is credited with much of the success of the PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles.

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So Bill Gates gave his final CES keynote address yesterday at CES (January 6, 2008). I still contend he’ll be back in some form, likely in 5-10 years with another keynote and charging a hefty speaker fee (a la President Ronald Regan’s $1+ million per appearance).

Gaming wasn’t tops on his list of stuff to chat about, but he did spend several minutes with the Xbox 360 (and in terms of Billy-G’s income, that’s about $1600 per minute).

From the Gadgetell Live Blog of the keynote:

10:25 PM: “In the US, the Xbox business is in a ‘very, very good place.’ I’m excited to announce tonight that we have passed the 10 million user mark on Xbox Live. We’re brining ABC shows to Xbox Live, and expanding the video content available. In addition, MGM Studios is putting content on Xbox Live as well.”

He did make mention if IPTV which is the biggest Xbox 360 news from CES so far.

The IPTV will IPTV be available through the console Christmas 2008. According to Engadget, the IPTV service will include live streaming broadcasts and record a show while you play a game. During his keynote, he flipped between gaming and TV. No word on the cost or whether or not you’ll be able to record your game.

Gates also mentioned an HD-DVD player add-on for Xbox 360, though that’s not really that new unless, of course, it turns out to be an internal device.

Read [Gadgetell] Also Read [Engadget and Engadget]